“Five From New York, It’s . . .!”

Life is so full of coincidences and symmetries. For example, just last week MetLife announced that it was abandoning its association with Snoopy and the Peanuts family. Just like that. For decades Snoopy et al have been the soft side of life insurance. Now, no more beagle, Charlie Brown or Lucy.

She’ll Be Missed

But in a twist that makes me almost believe there are surreal forces at work, Lucy has been replaced. You see, my daughter, Onnaoj and her husband, Hsoj, had a baby girl last week–named, Lucy. Yes, the world is full of mysteries.

This, for me, is grandchild number five and as my friend, Retep#2 likes to remind me, I now have enough for a basketball team. Of course, my team doesn’t have a lot of experience . . . the oldest is only six. And the truth is, they’re rather short. For example, my starting center, Julian, is only 4′ 0″; and it’s downhill from there.

As I’ve written before, all thisgrandfatherness has all happened rather suddenly. And honestly, I don’t think I’ve fiscally prepared for it very well. You see, when the first was born I started giving what I consider a very sizable cash gift on each birthday. I continued this with each grandkid. I had never considered that there would be this many birthdays. Now, I’m starting to think I may have to reconsider this entire ret . . . retirem . . .retirement thing.

But there are saving graces and advantages (beyond the obvious pleasures) to having all these grandkids. As you may know, I’ve had an ongoing commitment to try to maintain as much of my mental acuity as I can. Doing crosswords, walking on cobblestones, supplements–the works. But I don’t think any of thesedo as much for me as trying to keep track of five new birthdays. Can you imagine?? Of course, I use all kinds of memory aids and mnemonic devices but this just more of the kind of brain cell activity I relish.

And then . . . and then, just when I think I’ve stimulated all of those cells that have just been lying around doing nothing for years, I realize I get to try and keep track of a whole new bunch of middle names. Let’s see . . . there’s Damian—-or is it Damien; there’s Shepherd— or is it Shephard. And all those others. Wow, how great is this!